


You and You and Me in a Sailboat to Isthima

by misura



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7562404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Torveld may be lost at sea in good company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You and You and Me in a Sailboat to Isthima

"Do you actually know how to steer one of these things?" Torveld asked.

It had taken him two long hours of strenuous negotiation to find someone willing to permit a Prince of Patras to borrow their small sailboat, for a price that Torveld felt ought to have bought the vessel outright, rather than renting it for a single day.

"How hard can it be?" replied Kallias, and grinned.

People had gotten shipwrecked, making the crossing from Ios to Isthima. Or so Torveld had been told.

"The winds are favorable," said Erasmus. His skin had colored to a light shade of bronze. Kallias had teased him about needing to get a hat to protect him from the sun; Erasmus had simply smiled and ignored him in a way Torveld would have never been allowed to get away with.

_Truly, it is a new world, where a Prince may be commanded by a former slave._

"In the songs, they usually are," said Kallias.

"I asked one of the fishermen," Erasmus replied. "He told me."

"Ah. The same one who tried to get you to agree to have a drink with him?" Kallias sounded amused.

Many things amused Kallias, and very few things frightened him, even things that Torveld felt any reasonable man would fear. Some days, he suspected that Kallias had numbed himself to anything in the world that might hurt him, rather than giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing him weak.

Other days, like this one, the sun shone too brightly for such dark thoughts.

Besides, Torveld knew full well that if Erasmus had agreed to that drink, 'amusement' would not have been Kallias's first response. (Nor, it had to be said, would it have been Torveld's.)

_And so, perhaps, we are not so different, he and I._

"It was far too early in the day for a drink," said Erasmus.

"He was old and ugly, and did not deserve your company," said Kallias, his gaze darting to Torveld, as if daring him to protest.

In truth, the fisherman had not seemed much older than Torveld. As to his looks - well.

"He told me he knew some good stories. About Trition, and how he'd seen a kraken, once."

"Everyone knows the story about Trition." Kallias scoffed. "Well, everyone in Akielos, at any rate. They probably don't know it in Patras, or if they do, they've gotten the details all wrong."

"We have other stories," said Torveld, easily. The sunlight was pleasantly warm on his face.

"I enjoy some of your Patran stories," Erasmus said. "They are very clever."

Torveld could not resist the opening. "Like Patran princes?" He winked - not at Erasmus, who might have blushed or smiled back, but at Kallias, who merely scowled and turned his head for a moment, as if to show how unimpressed he was, how uninterested in Torveld's opinions or small jokes.

It was hard, if not impossible, to imagine a palace slave having been permitted to act in such a manner.

Harder still, not to love him, just a little, for having somehow managed to preserve that part of him, to have carried it with him through his training and his years of service, to display it now, to someone he trusted not to be offended or pushed away by it.

_Well. At least I shall never need to worry about falling prey to vanity with this one around._

"Oh, but Patran princes are kind as well," said Erasmus. "And very brave, and attractive, too. I feel very lucky, to be here in the company of someone so wonderful."

"I think I might be getting seasick," said Kallias.

"Try not to throw up on any krakens," Torveld said. "You might offend them."

Kallias offered him a rude gesture that might have doubled as an invitation but probably didn't. "Aren't you supposed to be this wonderful prince? Afraid of a little kraken?"

"Given that I'm fairly sure they don't exist, hardly."

"Not little ones, at any rate," said Erasmus. "The kraken that laid waste to Arademon was the size of the palace at Ios, at least. I don't know how any single man would be able to fight it."

"There's three of us," Kallias pointed out.

"Three of us, and one boat that has clearly seen better days," said Torveld. He found himself considering how he would defend Ios against a kraken the size Erasmus had described.

Archers would be key, probably, and perhaps even a few ballista, to launch rocks at the creature, in case its skin would prove too thick for the arrows.

"You're the one who rented it," said Kallias. "And grossly overpaid for the privilege, I might add."

Torveld decided not to ask what a former palace slave would know of the going rates for boats-for-rent. "You were standing right there."

Kallias shrugged. "It's not as if you couldn't afford it."

"I always imagined that one day, I would be living in the palace at Ios," said Erasmus, a dreamy and distant look on his face. "And that, when the sky was particularly clear, I would stand on the roof and see Isthima in the distance."

"This is better than that," Kallias said, and this time, when he looked at Torveld, there was something in his eyes that might almost be mistaken for warmth, or at the very least a certain affection.

_You're welcome,_ Torveld thought.

" _Much_ better," Erasmus agreed.

 

("But, really, does anyone know how to make sure we stay on course?")


End file.
